Streak of bad luck with NYC parking (Rant)

chamenos

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I got home late last Thursday night and parked on the wrong side of the street I usually park on, not realizing that street cleaning for the side I parked on was on Tuesdays and Fridays, 11.30am to 1pm. Got a fine the next day, which came as a surprise since I didn't know I was doing anything wrong.

Fast forward to today, and I went to school in the afternoon for a class. Just before I turned onto the street I usually park on at school, this sportbike overtakes me and turns onto the same street, taking the only free space available that would have taken two bikes, except he parks his bike diagonally right in the center of the space. The other cars were parked bumper-to-bumper literally, so there was no way I could squeeze my bike in anywhere.

I go round the block back to the same street to see if there was a spot I might have missed. There's this car double parked with the owner standing outside, obviously waiting for one of the cars to leave. I try to park in a nice gap between the cars, but he starts saying, "Don't you park there, this car's going in there and Imma knock you over if I don't got space!"

So I spot a few Vespas parked on the pavement and thought why not? I see them parked on the pavement all the time so it must be ok. I do what they do, lock my bike up and go for class, only to come back an hour later and find a parking ticket for $115 issued just 5 minutes before I got back. :mad:

I walk up to the Vespas parked on the pavement, and notice they don't have any tickets, which is when I also notice that their owners had removed the plates. The car which was double parked earlier is now parked in the lot the owner was waiting for, and there was PLENTY of space for my bike. :sigh:

I know it's my fault (coupled with some a**holes and bad luck), but it really sucks to be out $180 for nothing. I just needed to get that out...so thanks for listening/reading.
 
I feel your pain. 2 tickets in 2 weeks in the SAME spot but for different reasons.

I'll take the hit for the first one for $65 (+ $2 CC fee) for an expired inspection sticket. I just forgot because I don't worry about it much (park on my driveway at home.)

The second ticket was for pulling over and using my cellphone. I was sitting in the car and this meter maid/brownie rolls up and blips the registration. I am like dude what are you doing? He says no standing commercial zone (keep in mind that there is at least 40 feet in front and behind me thats empty.) I flip off the brownie and drive off saying mail me the ticket. I am not even going to give him the professional courtesy for him to give me a ticket. $115 + $2 CC fee.

I hate dealing with street parking and don't take my car into the city unless I plan on parking in the garage for the day (there goes $45 for weekdays, but only $17 for weekends.) There are also those places with parking after 7PM which I use occasionally when I visit some friends for a little bit.

So sometimes just paying a little for parking in a garage is better than eating a ticket or having the frustration of finding a spot. Thats how I deal with it.

/end of rant

Thank you for ranting. I feel a lot better now.
 
The second ticket was for pulling over and using my cellphone. I was sitting in the car and this meter maid/brownie rolls up and blips the registration. I am like dude what are you doing? He says no standing commercial zone (keep in mind that there is at least 40 feet in front and behind me thats empty.) I flip off the brownie and drive off saying mail me the ticket. I am not even going to give him the professional courtesy for him to give me a ticket. $115 + $2 CC fee.

.

i got one of those for "standing" in a bus zone. actually taking too much time to drop someone off.
i figure it's more like taxation. it's hard not to get tickets in the city.
anyway i always was thinking to put mud or something over those scan bars because it makes it too easy to scan for a ticket. but i figure you get some other ticket on top for obstruction of registration. :nana:
 
chamenos,

How the heck are you?!?

You're in New York City right now? Not in Singapore? How cool is that! Do you ever get outside the city? (like, say, to upstate NY)?
 
Jason, I'm sorry you got that fine for $115, I hear the traffic cops have quotas to meet, and they get more aggressive about it towards the end of the month.

I've been observing the motorcycles parked on sidewalks, and all have velcro stickers on their empty plate frames, so it seems like it's a common practice. Apparently the maidmeters won't bother giving you a ticket if it's too much trouble for them.

f22, there actually IS a fine you can get for obscuring your license plate :D

On a brighter note, I was going down Broadway yesterday on the bus lane (kind of), and this cop pulls me over for it. He asks for my license and registration, but lets me off with a warning. :thumbsup:

Jim, PM sent :)
 
That's the great thing about NYC, our over-glorified Meter Maids are so dedicated to their jobs.... They'll even hide in bushes just to catch law-breakers and write tickets. Now that's dedication. :rolleyes:
 
This just happened!

I spent a couple hours replacing a relay switch, lubing and adjusting some parts on my bike, and when I'm done I ride it around the block to make sure everything's good. I park it behind this truck, and this traffic cop comes over and asks me in thickly accented English that I can hardly make out, if the bike is mine.

I say YES, and I ask him if I did anything wrong, to which he says I didn't do anything. He fiddles with his ticket issuing gadget for a while, and I figure he's just running my plates to see if I have any outstanding fines or something.

He punches a button, and the device he's wearing on his belt starts printing a ticket, so I'm thinking WTF?!?!? I ask him again what he's doing, and he tells me I'm parked the wrong way (head in, instead of head out), and that if I'd admitted the bike was mine he wouldn't have issued me the ticket.

Either he's deaf, or he doesn't speak English that well but I just got another $65 ticket for basically nothing, from a !@#$ who was probably deliberately messing with me for a power trip!! :mad:
 
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wow just wow.

i'm sure if there was a break down of modern civilization, nyc parking officers will be the first to go..:twak:
 
wow just wow.

i'm sure if there was a break down of modern civilization, nyc parking officers will be the first to go..:twak:

You can say that again! :mad:

What ticked me off most was how the traffic cop handled the situation. Apart from being rude and not speaking coherently, even if he didn't hear me say YES IT'S MINE, I don't see how he could have thought otherwise with me standing right in front of him for the minute or so while he's busy issuing me that ticket, asking him what he's doing.

Is it possible that he's required to give me a verbal warning if he sees me doing it, and that he "didn't hear me say yes" to get around that and issue me the ticket?

Does anyone know if parking a motorcycle head-in instead of head-out on the street is even illegal in NYC? The ticket I got was for violation code 61, which is described as: "Except where angle parking is authorized, stopping, standing or parking other than parallel to curb or edge of roadway. Or, parking opposite the direction of authorized traffic movement."

I've been trying to find something about it online but nothing's come up yet. I don't understand why it's even an issue at all, even if it is illegal. :rant:
 
They're NYPD "Traffic Enforcement" Officers. They wear a different uniform, and they don't carry a gun or cuffs AFAIK.

The few I've interacted with also had at least some difficulty communicating in English, so I doubt they have to meet the same standards that the regular cops have to.
 
Does anyone know if parking a motorcycle head-in instead of head-out on the street is even illegal in NYC? The ticket I got was for violation code 61, which is described as: "Except where angle parking is authorized, stopping, standing or parking other than parallel to curb or edge of roadway. Or, parking opposite the direction of authorized traffic movement."

I've been trying to find something about it online but nothing's come up yet. I don't understand why it's even an issue at all, even if it is illegal. :rant:
If you were parked in between the space between two vehicles which were parallel parked (i.e. you were at a right angle to the curb), then yes, it's illegal according to that law. Technically, that's what he should have said you were being ticketed for, not because you were parked head-in instead of head-out (both are illegal according to the letter of the law).

[rant]
One thing I hate about traffic laws, especially parking laws, is the arbitrary enforcement. If every law was enforced 100% of the time, instead of at an officer's whims, there would be a lot fewer laws (or the courts would be clogged up otherwise), and those which exist which actually make some sense. Fact is NYC has too many traffic laws, too many parking laws, and too many laws, period. This makes interpretation/enforcement very arbitrary.
[/rant]

On another note, since I'm assuming this all occurred in Manhattan I personally think you're better off sticking to the subway if you'll be mainly traveling around that borough. It's probably faster than going by road, and certainly less expensive than getting all those tickets. I don't drive or own a car but my mom and brother do. They'll never drive into Manhattan. For starters it's too slow (it can often take 2 hours to travel from 10-15 miles from the outer boroughs into midtown, even if the best of times it takes at least as long as the subway), and then there's the parking problem. NYC, especially Manhattan, is not a very friendly place for motorized personal transportation of any sort as I'm sure you've already discovered.

And yes, meter maids are pretty much universally despised here. :scowl:
 
They're NYPD "Traffic Enforcement" Officers. They wear a different uniform, and they don't carry a gun or cuffs AFAIK.

The few I've interacted with also had at least some difficulty communicating in English, so I doubt they have to meet the same standards that the regular cops have to.

These over-glorified Meter Maids enjoy Peace Officer status. Pretty much every City worker does. (Bus drivers, Subway conductors, etc). Punching one, no matter how much they deserve it, is an automatic felony.

Yes, the law in NYC gives them the same protection given to actual LEOs.
 
These over-glorified Meter Maids enjoy Peace Officer status. Pretty much every City worker does. (Bus drivers, Subway conductors, etc). Punching one, no matter how much they deserve it, is an automatic felony.

Yes, the law in NYC gives them the same protection given to actual LEOs.

I'll bring my E2e with me so the next time this happens I'll just follow the Meter Maid around and annoy him/her. Does that count as assault or harassment? :sssh:
 
They're NYPD "Traffic Enforcement" Officers. They wear a different uniform, and they don't carry a gun or cuffs AFAIK.

The few I've interacted with also had at least some difficulty communicating in English, so I doubt they have to meet the same standards that the regular cops have to.

Meh, meter maids are the bottom of the barrel, they have literally no requirements and pretty much anybody off the street can get in. The only power trip they can go on of course is ticket frenzy, and looks like you are the unlucky one this time.
 
jtr1962, thanks very much for the informative post! Don't think i'll be fighting this one then...but man was that guy a jerk! I stopped being upset about the ticket a while ago, but thinking about the officer I had to deal with still gets me mad! :angry:

Anyway I got the motorcycle more to get out of the city, rather than to get around the city, though I do drive it around Manhattan if I know the place I'm going to has parking.

Motorcycles and scooters also have the advantage of lane-splitting, which by the way is technically illegal in NYC (not sure about NYS). The regular cops usually use that as an excuse to pull you over to check that you have a valid license (not a permit), but the NYPD Highway Patrol are really strict about it. Plus they'll ticket bikes going in the HOV lane, contrary to Federal regulations permitting motorcycles to use the HOV lane. :ironic:


By the way this hilarious video really helped me cool off yesterday:

WARNING: SOME EXPLICIT LANGUAGE/MATURE CONTENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DytIyFgtvKI

:D
 
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